In 2024, the average age of a first-time homebuyer in America reached 38 years old. Not long ago, that number was 31. That single shift explains the frustration simmering among younger Utahns who feel priced out of the very communities they grew up in.
Utah’s housing crisis didn’t unfold quietly. During COVID, when the state became “the great discovery,” prices exploded. Between 2020 and 2021, Utah saw a staggering 25 percent jump in a single year—five or six years of appreciation compressed into twelve months. Today, the median Utah home hovers around $585,000, and Summit County sits above $1.6 million. Meanwhile, renters are sinking 30 to 40 percent of their paycheck into staying housed.
But the real story isn’t about rising prices.
It’s about why prices rose and why it’s so difficult to bring them back down.
To dig into this, I sat down with Kimberly Burnett, Managing Director of Ivory Innovations, an organization focused on housing affordability and regulatory reform. Kimberly teaches a course on innovations in housing at the University of Utah, works with builders, and studies the exact policy levers that keep Utah’s supply tight. Her insight paints a picture not of a market that accidentally broke, but one that may be functioning exactly as designed.
Three ideas stand out, each surprising, and each crucial to understanding what’s happening in Utah.
1. The “Manufactured Crisis”: When Scarcity Becomes the System Not the Mistake
The common explanation for Utah’s housing shortage is familiar: rapid population growth, limited land, NIMBY pushback, and zoning complications. But there’s a deeper structural issue Kimberly identified, one that disrupts the standard narrative.
Sixty-eight percent of Utah’s state legislators have some involvement in real estate.
That number changes everything.
If policymakers benefit financially from high home prices and limited supply, then the crisis begins to look less like a failure and more like a feature. Kimberly put it bluntly:
“People really do want to maintain the system that we have… I think it’s intentional.”
She didn’t mean there’s a coordinated conspiracy. She meant the incentives are aligned to support the status quo:
- High home values protect retirement equity.
- Restrictive zoning protects neighborhood property prices.
- Limited supply benefits investors and owners with multiple properties.
- Luxury apartments generate strong returns, and cities routinely approve them.
So when Utah leaders talk about “affordable housing,” but zoning remains rigid and new models remain blocked, it’s worth asking why.
Kimberly offered a succinct explanation:
“The system we have serves a lot of people, and that’s why it’s so hard to change.”
That includes people in power. When those who write the rules benefit from those rules, reform becomes politically risky.
This raises a legitimate question:
Is Utah’s housing scarcity really an accident or a system that too many powerful people prefer to keep?
2. Regulation Adds 24% to Every New Home Making Small, Affordable Homes Nearly Impossible
One of the most revealing parts of our conversation was Kimberly’s explanation of how much regulation contributes to the cost of a home.
“Twenty-four percent of the cost of building a home is just attributable to regulation.”
Nearly a quarter of the final price comes from:
- Impact fees
- Permitting
- Utility approvals
- Code compliance
- Zoning delays
- Administrative overhead
- Layer upon layer of municipal requirements
On a million-dollar home, that’s $240,000 before you even break ground.
This alone explains why builders keep delivering large, expensive homes. When every project is weighed down by regulation, the only way to make a profit is to build big.
Kimberly was clear about this:
“Builders would be happy to build different stuff if governments let them.”
And also:
“Developers aren’t the bad guys. We don’t get stuff built without developers.”
This flips a common assumption. Developers aren’t resisting affordable housing. They’re constrained by the rules cities impose.
In Kimberly’s words:
“We’ve made it way too hard to say yes and way too easy to say no.”
Cities may claim they care about affordability, but their zoning codes tell a different story. Minimum lot sizes, mandatory parking, and owner-occupancy rules for ADUs make inexpensive construction effectively illegal.
Utah’s housing market looks “out of whack” because regulation makes it impossible for supply to meet demand. And until the regulatory burden shrinks, no number of speeches or press releases will create meaningful change.
3. Utah Already Knows How to Build Affordable Housing But the System Won’t Allow It Anywhere Else
This is the part of the story that frustrates younger Utahns the most.
Affordable, community-oriented, small-footprint housing already exists in the state and it works.
The most compelling example is The Other Side Village, a tiny-home community on eight acres of land. It includes:
- 60 small, efficient units
- Shared open green space
- Perimeter parking
- Solar power
- Retail shops
- A wellness center
- Neighborhood pavilions
Each unit costs about $130,000—a price point Gen Z would jump at if given the chance. But here’s the catch: this model can’t simply be replicated in other Utah cities.
Why?
Because zoning won’t allow it.
Kimberly didn’t mince words:
“Zoning doesn’t allow it right now.”
Cities restrict density, resist nontraditional models, and fear anything that might look “different” from conventional subdivisions.
The same applies to ADUs. California removed its owner-occupancy rule and ADU construction surged. But in Utah, most cities still insist that landlords can’t build ADUs unless they live on-site. That rule alone kills thousands of potential units.
Kimberly explained what would happen if the rule changed:
“You’re going to see a lot more ADUs built if you get rid of that requirement.”
Yet cities cling to the rule, insisting it’s necessary to prevent “party houses,” parking issues, or an influx of renters.
Even innovative projects like Innovation Park in Francis, which offer townhomes at 40% below market rate, rely on unusual circumstances—like Ivory Homes donating land—to succeed. That’s admirable, but not scalable statewide.
Most striking of all is that younger Utahns want these alternatives. Kimberly hears it firsthand in her housing-innovation class:
“Gen Z is really willing to experiment.”
The desire exists. The need exists. The models exist.
What doesn’t exist is permission.
A Problem Built Over Decades And One Utah Can Still Solve
Kimberly often emphasizes that Utah’s housing crisis was built layer by layer over decades. But that also means the crisis is solvable.
“If we created this problem, we can solve it.”
And she’s right.
Fixing affordability will require:
- Loosening restrictive zoning
- Reducing regulatory costs
- Supporting smaller, denser housing models
- Opening new land tied to transit
- Making ADUs accessible to more homeowners
- Allowing developers to build what people actually want to buy
Utah doesn’t lack the land, the builders, the ideas, or the demand.
It lacks the regulatory courage.
For Utah’s rising generation, the future depends on whether leaders are willing to challenge a system that—intentionally or not—keeps housing scarce and expensive. Because if nothing changes, Utah will continue drifting toward a future where only investors and wealthy transplants can own homes.
But if Utah chooses bold reform, it could lead the nation in affordability innovation.
The tools exist.
The models work.
And as Kimberly said, the problem is solvable if we’re finally willing to solve it.
